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Thursday, July 31, 2008

I've been on a card-making tear lately. Which means I've made a total of 4...I started making them last weekend and enjoyed the almost instant gratification- most of them come together in just 15-20 minutes.

This one I totally lifted from Melissa Phillips' blog post. I loved the little flowers made of circles. She used a die, but I just free-cut mine (so they're wobbly circles). I need to get some Nestabilities at some point, I guess, because I don't want a bunch of circle punches. They take up too much room.

Last week my dear great-grandmother passed away, and after the funeral we went through her apartment a little to help start cleaning it out. I was amazed at the stacks and stacks of greeting cards that she'd kept from over the years. I have them now in two large bags in my scrap room and will be putting them into a book (as soon as I get the card stock drilled for a 3-ring binder). They were important enough for her to keep, and I think I must get some of that desire to keep stuff from her. :)

Seeing all the cards has made me want to send more out to the important people in my life, so I'm going to continue this card-making stint for a long time (it's a great way to use up scraps left over from my pages, too) and start sending out a couple a week to various people in my family. Yes, Mom and Dad, this includes you, too. :)

Monday, July 28, 2008

On posting, that is. :) I have some photos of the weekend before last that I want to share.

My brother and his wife came to visit on Saturday. Jon needed to change the timing belt in his car, and we have a garage full of tools for that purpose (and many others), so he came over to borrow them for a while.

When they arrived, I was cutting quilt pieces at the dining room table. Since my birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, I've always had an affinity towards all things green and shamrockish. I've often bought a yard or so of fabric for the holiday, especially after the holiday when Wal-Mart has it for $1 a yard (or less). Over the years I've amassed a good little stash of it, but didn't really know what to do with it. Then one day I was reading Christine Middlecamp's blog post about making a simple quilt for her son. It was a complete duh! moment, and I grabbed the fabric and started cutting 8" squares of it.

So that's what I was in the middle of when J and Beth showed up. At that point I knew I should cook some lunch, and when I started to go to the kitchen, my brother offered to cut my quilt pieces for me. I'm sure my jaw hit the floor. It turns out that he cuts pretty much all of Beth's quilt pieces for her, too (she likes to cut fabric about as much as I do- which is not much at all). So he finished mine up while I made a pizza twist for lunch, and he did an awesome job. J, you rock!

After lunch, Beth offered to start laying the blocks out for me. It wasn't an easy job since I had 8-10 different patterns, but she did a great job. We discovered that the blocks were the same size as the quilted blocks of my current bed quilt, so she used it as a template.

And then she read some magazines and Griffin snuggled up with her on the couch. :-)

So now all the rows are neatly stacked in my sewing room, and I've actually started piecing them together. I'm not in a huge hurry to get it done- I'm just enjoying the time to sew when I have it.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I'm just stunned at the number of new Wii games that are coming out that I'm just going to have to have. I wasn't really thrilled with any of the announcements made at E3, but there are games on the radar that didn't get much mention there but really have my attention.

First up, Rock Band 2 (November 18, 2008). The game that made me decide to skip buying Rock Band 1 altogether. Not only are the instruments, including the drum set, being upgraded for this release, but it will be backward compatible with the original games and track pack. As a bonus, ION is making a *real* electronic drum set that can be used with this game. It's $300, but if I get good enough with the one that comes with the game, I may consider buying one.

Next is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (September 16, 2008). I'm really not sure how I'll handle a game with a story mode like this. Since I missed out on the last 10 years of console and PC games, I think I failed to pick up some fundamental theory of gaming that makes playing these things easier. But, it should be worth it just for the thrill of running around my living room swinging the Wii remote like a lightsaber.

Guitar Hero World Tour (October 27. 2008) is also on the short list- the track list looks somewhat promising, and I love Guitar Hero III. I just wonder how many sets of musical peripherals will fit in my living room, which is quickly becoming the Wii room.

Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 (September 16, 2008). Must have. Period. I love the first DDR for the Wii and played it incessantly for several months until I got to that last song that was insane...something about a samurai in New York City. Craziness. But I love this game and am so happy to see another version coming out.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

I went to a crop at the local scrapbook store in Huntsville- Once Upon A Scrapbook- for the first time in a very long time last night. We had a great group of 8 scrappers there, and I was able to complete 14 pages! Some of these aren't my best work, but sometimes it's just good to get them done. Usually when I go back and look at them later, I like them better than when I made them.

I finally finished last year's Christmas photos!! Now that I crop and resize my photos and choose a sketch before they're printed, I shouldn't have such a struggle with big batches of photos like these any more. As long as Becky Fleck keeps those PageMaps coming!!

Speaking of backlogs of photos, I'm caught up on photos of the cats, too. One lady last night saw me scrapping pics of Griffin and said I must not have kids to be scrapping photos of the cats. She's so right. :-)

And I got started on some photos from the Denver Botanic Gardens last fall. I had *just* bought the 18-200 VR and was (okay, still am) totally obsessed with it. This was the same day I went to the Denver Zoo (yet another backlog of photos).

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Basic Grey has released their sneak peeks for the Summer CHA trade show. And they're GORGEOUS!! The last couple of releases they've had haven't really wowed me, and I've only bought a couple of lines from each. I may have to have all five of these, though...just as soon as I've finished that pesky no-shopping challenge.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Between reading LOLCats like this and reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy way too many times (the BBC radio dramas are permanent residents of my iPod), I think I have officially warped my brain beyond any hope of repair.

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